


Hay Fever

by A_Candle_For_Sherlock



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Fluff without Plot, Hay Fever, M/M, Sickfic, Victorian, Victorian Sherlock Holmes, accidental love confession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 22:36:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7592884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/A_Candle_For_Sherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The silence stretched, ached. Then, "Yes, Holmes?" Watson said shakily.</p><p>"I'd do anything for you. Risk anything."  He watched the uncertainty passing over Watson's features. He did not have words for this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hay Fever

**Author's Note:**

> Russian translation here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11866650

Sherlock Holmes settled lower into his crouch and pondered the inconvenience of a stakeout in summer. The sun was turning their eminently practical groundcover--the fragrant field of wild grass--into a heat trap. His legs ached. Sweat collected in his hair, rolled down his face and the back of his neck and soaked into his collar. The stiff, dry stalks of grass rising around them poked into his side, brushed his neck unexpectedly, making him twitch. The flat blue August sky blazed overhead.

A fieldmouse ran over his foot and he jerked it away with a soft oath.

He stared across the field at the tiresomely peaceful farmhouse. The hired hand had left the gate unlatched at noon; he expected the farmer's brother to arrive at any minute with an axe and the intent to commit murder with it. He was prepared. He was alert.

He would land in Bedlam if he did not escape the heat soon.

A songbird sang a few lazy notes. A breeze moved through the grass.

He rubbed a hand over his damp face and sighed. Watson snuffled beside him for the third time in ten minutes; pulled out his pocket handkerchief and blew his nose.

He glanced around, irritated by the noise, and froze. Watson was blinking rapidly; his eyes were reddened and wet. He lifted a furtive hand to rub them.

"Watson," he said aloud, surprised out of caution. "Are you _weeping?"_

To his immense relief, Watson laughed. "Good Lord, no. I seem to be experiencing an attack of autumnal catarrh thanks to this infernal grass."

"Catarrh? Hay fever?" He frowned. "You are not susceptible to hay fever."

"Too definite a statement without data. Assumptions and absolutes have no place in a scientific mind," Watson said airily. It took Holmes a moment to realize he was being mimicked. He glared to hide his smile. Watson added in his normal tone, "Perhaps there is a flower native to this area which affects me." He snuffled again and Holmes noticed his nose was discharging freely.

"You should go back."

"And leave you to face the murderous brother alone? Certainly not." Watson drew himself up in pretended affront, but his eyes were intent. "I won't leave you in the breach, Holmes. Never have, never shall."

"Oh, for God's sake." Holmes sighed, but privately he was relieved. The brother was of course little threat to him alone, but once combined with the hired hand, the farmer and the maid's man, he'd be harder to outmatch. "Just try to keep quiet; I expect we shall see action shortly."

Watson wrinkled his nose. "Let them come. I'll take two of them barehanded, hay fever be damned."

 

Which he in fact did, very successfully, and Holmes managed the other two until the arrival of Lestrade and his men put an end to the criminals' ardor with the weight of the irons settled on their wrists. Holmes left the paperwork to Scotland Yard and escorted Watson into the hansom Lestrade had brought along for them with no small satisfaction. Watson rested his head on the seat and smiled as he listened to Holmes' exuberant exclamations over the neatness of the case's resolution, and actually flushed up a bit when Holmes included his exceptional display of fisticuffs in his praise. "Of course," Watson murmured, looking away. "I learned a few things in Kandahar besides doctoring. Glad I could be of service to you, Holmes."

"You are always of service to me," Holmes told him, and leaned back to watch the sprawl of London rising around the cab in the deepening dusk.

Mrs. Hudson had hot roast beef and potatoes waiting on their arrival, but to his surprise, Watson ate only a few bites, breathing oddly around them, before pushing his chair back from the table. "I cannot taste it at all," he admitted--but it came out more like, "I caddot," and his voice was rough. His airways were still irritated, then; his nasal cavity sounded fully blocked.

"You should rest," Holmes suggested.

"I'll read a little first," Watson said stubbornly, and went to his chair by the fire. Holmes finished his meal to the sound of Watson's pages turning, interspersed with a sharp sniff every minute or so. Then he went for his pipe and tobacco and settled in opposite him to smoke.

No sooner had he lit up and taken a few good draws, however, than Watson's face contorted and he sneezed. He searched for his handkerchief. Two more violent sneezes followed before he had it out. He stood abruptly.

"I am sorry, Holmes, it's the smoke," he croaked. "I'll go to bed." He looked a little embarrassed.

"Good," Holmes answered quickly. It was surprisingly unsettling to see him so uncomfortable. "I hope your sleep refreshes you. I am sorry to have disturbed you," he added, as Watson's eyes watered and he sneezed once more, backing away from Holmes.

"It's quite all right," he said and left hastily, closing the door behind him.

The sitting room was left empty and still.

Holmes sat smoking, staring into the fire. He wished Watson hadn't left. He didn't take Watson's company for granted--he never had. But over the course of their acquaintance he'd become unwittingly dependent on it. Of late, startlingly so. His only comfort was that Watson seemed equally eager to join him--over a case or a fight or a meal or a quiet night's pipe. He took his pipe out of his mouth and frowned at it. Of course the smoke would exacerbate Watson's condition. Why hadn't he thought before he'd lit it? He felt himself dissatisfied with his lack of consideration. He got to his feet and emptied the pipe into the grate, turned on his heel and went to his chemical array. He'd pass the time with experimentation until he could sleep.

Soon he was entirely absorbed. When the door to the sitting room creaked open some hours later, he startled--looked around sharply to see Watson standing in the doorway, pale, bent-shouldered and weary in his dressing gown. "I can't sleep," he said, and shrugged. Laughed a little. "I cough when I lay back, and when I sit up, my nose begins to stream. I thought--do you remember playing till I fell asleep, that once?"

Holmes turned to find his violin. Watson smiled and went to lay on the sofa across the room. He curled on his side, pillowing his head on a cushion, and waited while Holmes plucked and tuned the strings, drew the first low notes from the instrument.

He stood behind him in the shadows and played Brahms and Mendelssohn and Saint-Saens, the tenderest airs he knew. Watson coughed quietly once in a while, but his expression was soft, his features relaxed. The slow rise and fall of his side as he breathed bespoke his peace. Finally, his eyes drifted closed, his body loosening in sleep. Holmes played to the end of the movement and then stood still, watching him. He took in Watson's swollen eyelids, the tight, red skin around his nose, chafed raw by his handkerchief, and sighed.

"All so you could stay on the case. You should not misuse yourself for me," he murmured, and Watson stirred a little.

"Jus' for you, love," he slurred, sounding mostly asleep still.

The bow slipped from Holmes' fingers. It clattered to the floor and Watson pulled in a startled breath, blinking fully awake.

Holmes stood staring, trying to comprehend the impossible.

Watson's eyes flew suddenly wide. He pushed up on his elbow, holding Holmes' shocked gaze. Then tears sprang to his eyes, and he sat up and dropped his head heavily into his hands. His fingers trembled. "My God," he breathed, and Holmes laid down his violin.

"Watson?"

"I--Holmes, I apologize." Watson's voice shook. Holmes stepped nearer.

"My dear Watson."

Watson's hands fell into his lap. His head and shoulders stayed bowed.

"I--I do not want any apology," Holmes said and silently cursed his uneven tone.

Watson looked up sharply. Bleary eyes studied Holmes'. Carefully, Holmes moved around the sofa to stand in front of him. Dropped to his knees, to look directly into Watson's lovely, frightened face. "My dear boy. My--my dear."

The silence stretched, ached. Then, "Yes, Holmes?" Watson whispered.

"I would do anything for you. Risk anything." He watched the fearful uncertainty passing over Watson's features. He did not have words for this. Watson's fingers were still trembling gently in his lap. He could not bear to see it. It was wrong, entirely wrong. He reached out and captured them in his own large hands. "Don't," he pleaded, and bent his forehead onto their joined hands. "Don't be frightened of me, John."

He felt his exhalation in his hair. A warm tear dropped into it, then another. He heard a soft sob above him.

Then an explosive sneeze.

"Oh," John gasped as Holmes jerked back, startled. At sight of John's face a snort escaped him. Answering humor lit John's expression and then they were laughing, the sound rising until Mrs. Hudson's irritated voice called through the floor, "For goodness' sake!" and they gasped and quieted. John swallowed once, twice, blew his nose hard into his handkerchief. His eyes were shining. He said, helplessly, joyously, "Sherlock."

So there was nothing for it but to take him carefully in his arms, feel his head lay trusting and heavy against his chest, press him warm and solid and real against his thunderously beating heart in the night, in the quiet of Baker Street.

**Author's Note:**

> Bedlam/Bethlem Royal Hospital was a well-known mental hospital in London.
> 
> Holmes does in fact play Watson to sleep after an especially exhausting day in Doyle's stories.
> 
> Queer men were demonized in Victorian England as enemies of society and morality; Watson is terrified to have shown his feelings to Holmes because he thinks Holmes will reject him, feel disgusted and betrayed, possibly even turn him over to the police for prosecution under the Labouchere amendment. 
> 
> Autumnal catarrh--hay fever--was a subject of medical debate for much of the 1800s. The term "hay fever" was first recorded early in the century, and was popularly used. Many professionals believed that there was a psychological component and that nervous or sensitive people were more susceptible. (Entertainingly, or horrifyingly, an American expert, George Beard, blamed the nerve-weakening influence of modern "rapid transportation and communication...scientific learning and the widespread education of women.") Over time it was accepted that source of the irritation was likely the "effluvium" of grasses, flowers, and hay; eventually pollen was increasingly recognized as a culprit. Treatments recommended were varied: narcotics and other drugs, dietary changes, closed windows, avoiding areas with active plant populations, quinine in the nose, and increased exercise. 
> 
> My main source was "Blackley and the development of hay fever as a disease of civilization in the nineteenth century" by Kathryn J Waite: http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2F3836_326F73138E4B70701CA350CC5A9DB0DF_journals__MDH_MDH39_02_S0025727300059834a.pdf&cover=Y&code=f6ed79f18e04237db5d589f01343f27c


End file.
